[Chapter-delegates] ISOC's policies - sensitive email

[President ISOC-KH]

On 03/22/2012 03:23 AM, Veni Markovski wrote:
> Dear all,
> Based on today's discussion, and last few months of talks I have had 
> with folks from the ISOC chapter community, here is a brief view on 
> what's happening, what's good, and what - not so good. Order is random...

Let me start my comments with an "executive summary," quoting Alejandro, 
saying how I see the necessity for an agreement for the next steps:

*"...let's get the relation with the chapters right. My view is that the 
order is being reversed, and that we should go first through the pending 
- and possibly ongoing - Bylaw revision, then to the LoA. And in the 
meantime, continue having a high-level discussion of the relationship..."*

So far I have not seen anything related to content on this list about 
the Why and the How of the intended Bylaws revision. - At the time when 
many of us were surprised that www.isoc.org was replaced by 
www.internetsociety.org, combined with certain suggestions, several 
chapters representatives said that they will not follow suit locally, 
because of certain local  traditions, where a change would replace a 
firmly established image with problematic uncertainty.

I had to present the following section of the Bylaws to our Board, and 
for a vote to our membership:

"Article XI. - Amendment and Voting Procedures - All proposed changes to 
these Chapter Bylaws shall have been approved by the Internet Society 
(International) before being presented."

No surprise that we had to discuss - without clear results - if this 
structure is similar to what happens in our National Assembly, when 
voting on laws; that means mostly that the government has drafted 
something, and the parliament is allowed to "democratically vote" on it 
without any changes. Now our Bylaws are translated into the Khmer 
language as the basis for our legalization with the authorities as a 
local association, which is not easy to achieve. New Bylaws? We need not 
only to know more about these plans soon, but the chapters have to 
participate when the Internet Society -- when we -- draft something new 
about ourselves. No?

Some chapter representatives have said on this list that their chapters 
would probably not agree with the present shape (not only some wordings) 
of the LoA draft, when it was finally released for discussion. I hope 
there will not be a similar situation with a semi-finalized Bylaws 
draft, BEFORE we have had the "high level discussion on relationships" 
which  Alejandro -- and surely many others -- hope for.

I agree with a lot of the points Veni collected -- recollecting old 
history and newly raised concerns which remained without response -- in 
order to clarify what those who are looking back critically on the 
discussions of the last weeks and months are hoping to take up, 
together, in all sections of this complex entity ISOC.

It is NOT this or that detail in the LoA draft, it is not about persons 
-- it is about what ISOC is, in its composition of Chapters and 
Headquarters and Board, and their roles and relations.

The discussion about details of the purpose and details of the LoA, or 
the way in which the April Geneva meetings have been planned etc. are so 
far not leading anywhere, because many responses -- or non-responses -- 
by various participants reveal that we are NOT standing on a common 
ground, though I trust that we really would like to find and clarify 
this common ground for the whole fellowship of ISOC.

Norbert Klein
ISOC Cambodia Chapter
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/private/chapter-delegates/attachments/20120322/2d85ef67/attachment.htm>